


What Things Mean

by Brianna Aisling (casual_distance)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 23:05:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2086524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casual_distance/pseuds/Brianna%20Aisling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her teeth hadn't been a secret delight for a long time when she came back to Hogwarts again, teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. It made her laugh, that she would teach that subject, but only because thinking about why made her cry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Things Mean

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ: Aug. 3rd, 2004

She kept running her tongue over the edge of her teeth. It was one smooth, even arc, broken only by the slight drop of her canines, and it was a feeling she was sure would stay.

She did it in Potions, her mouth open slightly, and she looked up to see Snape following the movement of her tongue with his eyes, his mouth drawn up in a sneer. She closed her mouth and pressed her lips together, and he took thirty points from Gryffindor for her vanity.

It was two years before someone else ran their tongue along that flat ridge, and when he did, Ron tangled his hands in her hair and pushed her back against a wall. She clung to him, her own hands twisted in the fabric of his shirt over his biceps.

Snape caught them and took fifty points for inappropriate behavior. Hermione ran her tongue over her upper lip because she could still taste Ron. She looked up to see Snape following the movement of her tongue with his eyes, and he took another fifty for her vanity, his sneer the same as it had always been.

Time passed and Harry fought Voldemort and won (although he lost in other ways, and Hermione couldn't think about that without crying). She gave Ron her virginity, and he gave her hope until he became one of the things Harry lost (and she never tried to think about that even though she cried whether she did or not).

Her teeth hadn't been a secret delight for a long time when she came back to Hogwarts again, teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. It made her laugh, that she would teach that subject, but only because thinking about why made her cry.

She hated knowing she would always cry when she thought about it, and she hated knowing that she'd be no different than all the DADA teachers before her.

At the end of the year she left.

Snape finally got to teach the course, but when she had told him, a day before she left the school for the final time, he told her that he hated knowing he'd be no different from all the DADA teachers before him either; Voldemort left a mark.

Hermione cried, and a year later Snape showed up at her apartment, looking tired.

Harry never stayed around, his own memories too haunted for peace, and there were few who understood the battle that had raged, so Hermione let him in.

He told her he'd tried to cut the Death Mark from his arm and that he wished her teeth were still big. Hermione said she couldn't try to cut the memories from her mind and replied that she did too, if only because it meant she'd be innocent again.


End file.
